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769: 1 Tip for Team Problem Solving – Miranda Beeson

You have a million problems to solve in your business. Do you know what else you have? An amazing team that can help you. All you need to do is empower them! To help them support you in the way you need, Kirk Behrendt brings back Miranda Beeson, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share one tip for effectively solving problems with your team. Remember — you don't have to do it all! To fix the culture of ineffective problem-solving in your practice, listen to Episode 769 of The Best Practices Show!

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Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • Use the 1-3-1 rule to identify problems and solutions.
  • Always verbalize expectations. Your team cannot read your mind.
  • Team meetings provide the best opportunity to align on expectations.
  • When you empower your team to solve problems, they will do more of it.
  • You are the ultimate decision-maker in your practice, but delegate what you can.
  • Don't believe that your team isn't committed or willing to help you. Give them trust.
  • Developing your team is an investment. You will save thousands of hours in the future.

Quotes:

“The other thing we will hear is, ‘I have to do it because I don't have a committed team who will.’ It's kind of the chicken or the egg, because if we are always solving all the problems and not handing it back to our team and empowering our team to make decisions, they're not going to build a level of confidence and commitment to do that on their own. So, it's that question of which one comes first. Sometimes, you have to give them the trust and give them the opportunity to show up.” (5:22—5:51) -Miranda

“You really have to start with expectations. Everything that we talk about with coaching comes back to one equation, which is E – R = C. When our expectations don't meet our reality, we're always going to have conflict. Most team members aren't setting out to make your life harder. It might just not be clear to them what the expectations are. Again, maybe you've created an accidental culture of, ‘The doctor solves all the problems. He doesn't want us to make any decisions,’ or, ‘She doesn't want us to make any decisions,’ and you're over there going like, ‘Man, I wish they would make some decisions,’ because we haven't actually talked about it and laid out the expectations for how our team engages in problem-solving here.” (13:54—14:32) -Miranda

“The first piece is getting really clear around the expectations with your team on like, ‘Hey, I want to be here for you, and I want to be able to answer problems, and I want to be able to make sure that we're on track, but I want you to feel empowered to make decisions too. There are some things that, honestly, I probably don't know as much about as you do because you're doing this all day.’ If there's an issue with the phones, who's probably the right person to start troubleshooting the issue with the phone? Not [the person] who never answers the phone.” (14:33—14:58) -Miranda

“You have to decide what kind of culture of problem-solving you want in your practice. If you do want to have a culture that empowers your team to be part of that decision-making to relieve some of that burden — which, who wouldn't? — you have to start with making sure they know that that's something you'd like to start creating within the practice, and then build in some structure and some frameworks, because sometimes they don't even know how to problem-solve. Maybe they've never been developed in that way.” (15:44—16:10) -Miranda

“Without the expectation [made clear to your team], you're going to be frustrated, always. Your team can't live up to your expectations if they don't know what they are. So, if you're frustrated with your team, it's for one of two reasons. One, you've identified your expectations, and they truly aren't living up to them, and you need to have some conversations with them around their performance. Or two, you've never clearly identified what your expectations are, and so they don't even know that they're not meeting them.” (22:32—22:57) -Miranda

“How do we even do this? How do I implement this in my office? You have to share the idea with your team. You have to make really clear expectations. So, when am I supposed to do that? Just in the hallway, or the next time I get to my desk, and there are seven Post-its, and I go storming out there, waving them around like, ‘We're not doing this anymore!’? No. That's probably not the best way to share it with your team. Hopefully, listeners to this podcast are aware that we really believe in team meetings. If you do have team meetings in your practice, they're a fantastic opportunity for you to align as a whole team on important topics, expectations, and changes that are happening in the practice. It's a really great way to have the time — it's not rushed. It’s dedicated time for us to really build understanding of why.” (25:11—26:02) -Miranda

“I think that leaders — dental practice owners, especially — feel that they have to be the expert all the time because we're the expert, chairside, in the dentistry for the patient. ‘All seven of these people look to me for leadership. All 20 of these people look to me for leadership.’ But some of the best leaders are the leaders that can approach things in a very humble way, in a very vulnerable way, and say, ‘I want to do my best for you guys and I'm really trying, but I'm really struggling with how we solve problems here in the practice. I want to be able to do it in a timely manner for you. I want to make sure that I'm helping us get where we need to go, and I'm struggling with that. So, I'd like to try something new. Can you guys help me? Are you on board?’ If we approach it that way, it's bringing them into understanding why, all of a sudden, we are having to do this differently, because everyone resists change a little bit. If you can be a little vulnerable around how it's impacting you, how it's impacting the practice, and ultimately how you feel like this might benefit and impact the team, they're going to rally around this idea and be more apt to jump into giving it a try.” (26:37—27:44) -Miranda

“You also have to celebrate when team members do it well. I think we don't talk enough about the power of celebrating the positive that happens in the practice. There's a lot of psychology around positive encouragement. It takes ten things to outweigh one negative. If we feed that behavior that we are looking for with positive reinforcement, we're going to get more of that in the end.” (31:24—31:51) -Miranda

“The other thing to think about is that your team is going to adopt this — if you try this — at different paces and at different levels of mastery. You're going to have some people on your team who are like me who are discerners, naturally, and this is going to be fun for them. They're going to be really great at problem-solving in your practice. Then, you're going to have some people that maybe that's a frustration for them, or it's not their [working] genius, and it might be a little harder for them to [implement] this type of framework.” (39:08—39:34) –Miranda

“Time spent developing your team now feels like a lot of work, but it saves you endless hours in the future when they're competent enough to help you solve these problems, day in and day out.” (40:15—40:28) -Miranda

“There are some things you don't want to delegate to your team. But the things that can be delegated, at least to that first 80% or so to your team, start there. Start with those departmental or position-specific issues, those little things that you're like, ‘I feel like they could have handled this one.’ Maybe they just don't feel like they can.” (42:32—42:51) -Miranda

“We're never finished, as an entrepreneur. With any system or project, including something like this, you're working on it consistently with your team, collectively with your team, trying to make everything better every single day. So, it'll get there. And nothing will ever be perfect because perfect doesn't exist.” (44:35—44:52) -Miranda

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:57 Why this is an important topic.

8:53 The 1-3-1 rule, explained.

13:21 Start with setting expectations.

16:20 Why tools and frameworks are important.

19:50 Expectations, further explained.

25:06 Align during team meetings.

29:05 The “no thank you bite”, explained.

34:27 Benefits of effective problem-solving.

38:29 Everyone has a different “working genius”.

42:07 Final thoughts.

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH Bio:

Miranda Beeson, MS, BSDH, has over 25 years of clinical dental hygiene, front office, practice administration, and speaking experience. She is enthusiastic about communication and loves helping others find the power that words can bring to their patient interactions and practice dynamics. As a Lead Practice Coach, she is driven to create opportunities to find value in experiences and cultivate new approaches.

Miranda graduated from Old Dominion University, and enjoys spending time with her husband, Chuck, and her children, Trent, Mallory, and Cassidy. Family time is the best time, and is often spent on a golf course, a volleyball court, or spending the day boating at the beach.
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